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A Sabbath Day's Journey

By: Rev. Paul Landgraf
What is a Sabbath day's journey? First of all, it is a Jewish expression. We measure distances in meters or yards. The Jews had a certain distance that they could walk on Saturday before it would be considered work. So their synagogues that they went to on Saturday could not be very far away. The word appears only in Acts 1:12 and indicates a distance of about three-quarters of a mile.

With that in mind, I think it is important to remember the origins of Christianity. Just because we have an Old Testament, it does not mean that we call it the 'Outdated Testament'. Much of the Old Testament has a literary structure that we are not aware of because of our modern emphasis on chapter and verse divisions. Within many of these blogs, I try to get the reader to see a bigger picture, a larger perspective that often includes the Old Testament and the environment that was present when the New Testament was seeing the Light of the day.

Second, a Sabbath day's journey is intentionally short. These 'journeys' with a text, almost always one of the three readings for that Sunday, are deliberately brief discussions. This blog was never designed to be a comprehensive look at any text. Sometimes a specific word is studied in detail. But, as a whole, a blog entry, by itself, is meant to be quite brief.

Finally, since the term 'Sabbath day's journey' appears in Acts, it is meant to appeal to a wide variety of people. This blog is meant for those who cannot come on Sunday mornings. And it is also for those who do come on Sunday mornings but would also like a further study of the text. It is also for those who live somewhere else in the world (besides Drake and Freedom, Missouri, USA) and would simply like a further study of the text. It was meant to get these different groups of people to start thinking about the biblical texts. Part of the reason for this blog is that I am not able to have a bible class on Sunday mornings with either congregation, and so, to have a blog like this seemed like a good idea. I hope it is helpful for you, in whatever situation you may be.

Any feedback would be greatly appreciated. And thank you for taking the time to read this!

August 8th, 2020

8/8/2020

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The Old Testament text for this week is from the book of Job [38:4-18]. How often does THAT happen? To answer that question: not very often at all. If you do not include that a text from the book of Job is given during the Easter Vigil, and at the Easter Sunrise Service in year C, and also when there is a service because of a national or local tragedy, a text from Job only appears two times in the three-year series. (And both of those texts are from this same chapter.)​

If you do not know the theme of Job already, you can get a hint of that theme from those times mentioned above—Easter and a tragedy. After the disciples were finished with the first Good Friday, they must have been extremely hesitant to call it a GOOD Friday! And, in the same way, the day after there is a national or local tragedy, many people will be hesitant to call that day a good one.

Sometimes the theme of Job is stated in terms of a question such as this: Why do bad things like tragedies happen to good people? The trouble with stating the theme of a biblical book with a question is that it can focus the person too much on the answer. I am certainly not against answering peoples’ questions. [Please contact me if you have a question you would like to ask!] But when it comes to the theme of scripture, there is much more to consider than just asking a few questions. There is a much bigger issue at stake.

Roger Marcel Wanke approaches this topic with his book, Praesentia Dei--in other words, ‘the Presence of God’. He does not see much of a salvation theme within the book of Job, but he notes the importance of God’s presence throughout the book. [We can all be grateful that the book was not written in Latin. The book is actually in German though. Its longer title is Die Vorstellungen von der Gegenwart Gottes im Hiobbuch. It was published by De Gruyter in 2013.]

We can see that emphasis on God’s presence in the text for this week. The first verse of the text, verse 4, starts with this basic question: ‘Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation?’ The presence of God is certainly the starting point there. And there are a lot more questions throughout the book that bring up the issue of God’s presence. I will not be able to mention too many of them here.

We can see this emphasis on presence at the very beginning and the very end of the book. The book starts by introducing Job for five verses, and then is this somewhat literal description: ‘And it was that day and the sons of God came to present themselves before Yahweh, and Satan also came with them.’ This is the way that the problem is laid out before the reader/listener. After some discussion, the LORD allows Satan to attack Job, and thus the reason for the rest of the book.

Near the end of the book, when the LORD has his ‘last say’ in the matter, he brings up to Job—and this is a ‘big’ issue as well—the big creatures of behemoth and leviathan. Here are some more literal translations of some of the emphases on presence. Regarding the first, the LORD says (again, somewhat literally): ‘See, now, I made behemoth with you (40:15a).’ Regarding the second, he says: ‘No one is fierce enough to arouse him, and who is he that can stand before my face (41:10)?’ Questions like these can help to put people in their proper place, and they also put the LORD in his.

Even closer to the end of the book, when the text says that the LORD ‘accepted the prayers’ of Job (see 42:8-9), the literal translation of the phrase is to ‘lift up the face’ of Job. Here, again, is an emphasis on presence. For the LORD to lift up someone’s face, he must get pretty close.

A person can certainly benefit from realizing the presence of God. The riots, burnings, and murders that are currently going on can often result from someone who does not believe in a God who is present. People can also ask a lot of questions that they do not feel are answered. The book of Job certainly contains a lot of questions, and there is not a simple answer after every one of them. There is something much more important than an answer to a single question.

A more important starting point is the presence of God, and that starting point gives us a way that brings us back to the gospel, and that is the true center of the Bible. As I have stated elsewhere, the gospel is that Old Testament word that points to a messenger who was designated to give some important news. (In 1 Samuel 4:17, the messenger is bringing the news of the lost battle to Eli, a very important person.) Now, obviously, the good news about Jesus as Savior completely overshadows that old news.It is not just the matter if a book emphasizes God’s presence OR God’s salvation. Both are interconnected. We cannot be in God’s full presence because of sin, and Jesus was the messenger designated to take care of that problem. And the way he did that is a way that is usually quite surprising to the person who has not heard about that yet. 

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